Bibles Abundant There’s No Shortage Of Versions Of The Good Book

The Rev. Lum Setser paces along a 20-foot-long wall filled to the ceiling with Bibles.

In search of a basic King James Version, his eyes flash past a kaleidoscope of Bible covers. He skims over the Kids’ Application Bible, the Student Bible, “The Promise,” the Women’s Devotional Bible, the Men’s Devotional Bible, the Seniors’ Devotional Bible.

Then he takes a step back and sighs.

“You know, I just had a gallbladder operation,” says Setser, founder of the non-profit Jesus Chapel Ministries in Scottsdale, which also operates a large bookstore. “I ought to just go ahead and write the ‘Gall-Bladder Patient’s Devotional Bible.”’

It’s true, clergy and booksellers admit, this Christmas season - when bookstores sell up to half of all their Bibles for the year - there seem to be more varieties of the sacred Christian text than there were animals on Noah’s ark.

Eight major new translations have been released this year, according to Robert Saul, associate executive director of the Laymen’s National Bible Association in New York City.

Grabbing the attention of many of the scholarly types has been the Contemporary English Version, released by the American Bible Society. It is written at a level that most fifth-graders can understand, emphasizes short sentences and has a poetic lilt to much of the translation.

Yet it is the first major translation in years to have been done directly from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic languages. Many translations are simply rehashes of versions that have already been translated at least once.

Still, the December issue of “Bookstore Journal” ranks the New International Version, produced by the International Bible Society, as the No. 1-selling general version of the Bible.

Under the category of study Bibles, the Women’s Devotional Bible - which is simply the New International Version with devotionals for women attached - is the best seller now. The Couples’ Devotional Bible is ranked No. 7 and the Men’s Devotional Bible is No. 9.

In fact, all of the top 10 study Bibles are the New International Version with different names attached to them.

Despite the seeming plethora of Bible varieties floating around, most are essentially the same, Saul said. They have simply been repackaged, relabeled and marketed to different audiences.

An example is the aforementioned Contemporary English Version, which has been marketed in softcover format as “The Promise.”

“There’s no doctrinal difference between any of them,” Saul says.

What sets each of them apart are such things as the use of cartoon drawings for children, commentaries from noted evangelists and theologians, and devotional essays. But the basic text of the Scriptures remains about the same.

The King James Version of the Bible, which was contemporary when it was released to the public in the early 1600s, remains popular. It is the No. 2 best-selling general version of the Bible, according to “Bookstore Journal.”

Confused yet? To simplify things, Saul advises that shoppers for Bibles make the distinction between translations and paraphrased versions. The Good News Bible (Tyndale House) is an example of the latter. Phrases are rewritten to make them more understandable.

“In order to do what they’ve done, they leave out a little bit of detail. They try to tell the story. It’s still very theologically sound, though,” he says.

The New American Standard Bible, translated in the early 1960s by the Lochman Foundation, adheres strictly to the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic sentence structure.

“It’s more of a study Bible for serious students,” Saul says. “They’ve taken out the ‘thees’ and ‘thous,’ but it’s still very hard to read.”